My Perverted Imaginary Friend

Another day, another shitty date. Jake was just about sick of them. He dreaded to think how much of his precious free time he'd spent swiping and messaging to set up this complete waste of an evening. Actually that would have been a generous way of describing his latest attempt at landing a girlfriend and therefore a regular source of free and easy sex. Spending a few hours failing to reach ascension level twenty on Slay the Spire would have been a waste of an evening, but at least that would have been cheap and he might have had some degree of fun before the inevitable frustration and crushing disappointment hit.

Tonight's date had been nothing but awkward from the start. Jake had long thought a feature severely lacking from the apps was the requirement to include a reference from at least one ex, the kind of document a potential employer might wish to peruse before having to sit through an entire interview with a thoroughly unsuitable candidate. He was pretty sure no former boyfriend with any kind of integrity could have backed up his current dates online boasts that she was easy going, always up for a laugh and knew how to get the party started.

At least she looked like her photos and Jake did fancy her physically.

That was the only plus point of the date so far though, and a fairly irrelevant one as this rendezvous clearly wasn't leading to the bedroom. She hadn't asked Jake any questions about himself and barely answered the ones he posed to her with more than a sentence. She'd found the bar he had initially chosen to be too noisy for her tastes and redirected him to a very expensive restaurant, having already made a point of describing herself as a woman of traditional values - in other words she was expecting him to foot the whole bill. A decent quality prostitute would have sucked his dick for less by now, and he wouldn't have had to feign interest in their Bradley from S Club 7 anecdote first.

"Excuse me for a moment, I need to use the washroom."

Part of Jake thought she would be looking for a window to exit the date through while she was in there. Part of him hoped she found one. He began fiddling with his phone, just for something to do while his dining companion was otherwise engaged, until he heard a strangely familiar voice calling out to him from nearby.

"Looks like yet another night where you'll be jerking off on your own, loser!"

Jake lowered his mobile to see that the source of the taunt had been a dishevelled looking, garishly dressed man of around his own age, in an ill fitting suit with wild hair and a pair of shades that might have looked vaguely cool if it was 2003 and they were outdoors.

That was just what he needed to make his evening absolutely perfect - the unfriendly attention of a random lunatic. How did this guy even manage to sneak up like that so quickly without Jake noticing?

"I'm sorry, who the fuck are you exactly?"

"Aww, Jakey, is that any way to greet your best buddy after nearly twenty years? You're breaking my heart!"

The stranger had what sounded like an over-the-top New York accent despite this being Wisbech, a small market town and inland port in Cambridgeshire. There was only one childhood friend of Jake's who talked like that, but there was just no conceivable way it could be them.

"It's me! Bash!"

Yep, that was the one. Jake's imaginary friend who he had managed to shake off by the time he had reached his ninth birthday. That kid had been nothing but trouble.

"Did Lorraine put you up to this?" Jake asked tetchily.

Lorraine was his sister. This didn't seem at all like the kind of prank she would ever play, particularly as she'd always hated any mention of Bash, having been one of the two people who suffered most at the hands of Jake's mischievous sidekick back in the day. But unless Jake's parents or former child psychiatrist had thought this an amusing jape, there was nobody else it could be.

"Aww. Little Loser Lorraine! I sure can't wait to see her again!" Bash grinned "She was such a pretty little thing, I bet she's a real hottie now she's all grown up. And who was that other girl we used to have fun with? I bet she's turned into a fine piece of ass too"

"If you mean Jenny Hodges from next door she moved out of our street years ago, and I don't think she found anything we did to her remotely fun" Jake recalled guiltily just how much they used to torment the poor girl without any provocation "Anyway, why the fuck am I even talking to you? You're either somebody's idea of a joke or a major warning sign I'm having a mental breakdown."

"Jakey, buddy, you're really not doing much for my self esteem this evening" Bash shook his head and sighed "Although, word to the wise, you might want to pretend you're speaking into your phone because, although I'm obviously totally real, it might appear to the untrained eye like you're a nut job talking to nobody."

"What? That's insane."

"Just watch I'll prove it"

Bash began waving his arms and yelling as he stepped right into the path of a waiter.

"Excuse me! Hey over here buddy, I'm right in front of you!"

The waiter walked straight into Bash and went clattering down onto the ground in a heap, the glasses he had been carrying also falling and shattering into tiny pieces on the floor around him.

No. Fucking. Way.

Jake grudgingly picked up his phone and put it to his ear.

"What do you even want with me?"

"Want with you? I'm here to help my best pal finally find true love!"

"Ha, what would you know about that? And when did you ever help me with anything?" Jake laughed bitterly "The last time I saw you, you pantsed Jenny Hodges and let me take the blame for it!"

"Eh, let bygones be bygones." Bash shrugged "Ooh, is that your date coming back from her piss? You know what, she's actually pretty sexy, in a miserable and obviously doesn't like you kind of a way."

Jake put his phone down on the table as the person he was supposed to be spending his evening with returned.

"Who was that you were talking to?" she enquired.

"My mother"

"The last time you saw your mother she pantsed someone called Jenny Hodges and let you take the blame?" Jake's date raised her eyebrows "Yes. I heard that."

Jake really didn't see the point of continuing with this. It had been awkward enough before Bash showed up to make things ten times worse.

"Look. uh..."

"Claire" Claire glared at Jake and folded her arms aggressively "It's a common, one syllable name. It really isn't hard to remember."

"Yes, Claire, of course. Look, you seem like a great girl and.."

"Woah! Woah! Woah!" Bash suddenly stepped forward waving his arms "Let's take a time out before we do anything rash here!"

Suddenly Claire was sitting completely still and in silence, not moving a muscle as if she were on pause.

The waitress who had been walking past also remained motionless. In fact, nobody in the restaurant was moving and the venue, which had been buzzing with activity just moments ago, was now eerily quiet.

"How the fuck did you do that?"

"TIME FREEZE BABY!" Bash shouted excitedly.

"What? You can actually do time freeze now?"

"Hell yeah, buddy. All those powers we used to pretend we had? I've spent the last two decades perfecting them all!"

"What, you mean like..." Luke began to list the ones he could recall in disbelief "Mind Zap? Memory Loss? Slaveify?, Transformify? Nudify? Stupidify?"

"We kinda hit on a generic formula for the names after a while, huh? But yeah, I can do each and every one of those, plus a whole bunch more. So..." Bash reached his arms around Claire's chest, cupped her breasts in his hands and gave them a good squeeze without her even flinching "Do you want to prematurely end your date with this lovely young lady while the night is still young, or do you want to have some fun with your ol' buddy Bash again?"